WITH pop- and-beats princess Lana Del Rey riding high at the number one spot, former Olchfa School pupil Cameron Jenkins is allowing himself a glass of champagne or two to toast her success.

The first time he saw the pouty singer she was doing her smouldering thing on the little screen of her manager's mobile phone. But he knew then, he says, that she was a star in the making.

"The first time I heard her was when I went for a drink with her manager Ben Mawson and he said 'here, listen to this'. He played me her Video Games, which she had made herself. As soon as I heard it I said 'well that's a hit'."

At that time the track and video were getting some steady interest on the internet, and on his first meeting with Lana, Cameron signed her up to his fledgling label, Stranger Records on the spot, with a promise to release that first single. "Then the thing just went viral," says Cameron.

The media and the big labels have long had a pact of silence about so-called bedroom superstars who are catapulted to fame thanks to their shaky video-cam recordings getting mass hits on Youtube and Myspace.

Many of those home-spun stars actually have label backing and an army of marketing men working behind the scenes to make their ingenue a hit. But Cameron says Lana's story is a completely genuine one.

"There was no marketing machine, no big budget, no music industry Svengali behind her, it was exactly as it seemed to be. Something about the single just clicked with people and it was getting tens of thousands of hits a week so fast.

"We had to rush the single through so Fearne Cotton could play it on her show because she loved it."

Lana has now been taken on by a bigger label so her album Born To Die isn't in Cameron's stable, but being a small fish in big pond, he says, has its advantages. And while the big two record companies, Universal and Sony, have come to dominate the market in the past few years, the public does seem to be tiring of their largely formulaic, risk-free output.

"Major labels have lost their willingness to develop acts — they want everybody to be the finished article," says Cameron.

"Lana had to go on to the next stage but I like being the position of finding exciting new talent and developing them."

His newest projects sees him working with

Seye Adelekan, who made a name for himself playing guitar for Paloma Faith, The Noisettes and Ellie Goulding.

And he says moving from producing to having his own small stable of acts was a natural progression for him.

"I worked as an engineer at Powerplant with everyone from the Rolling Stones to Tina Turner. And I have co-produced The Verve, John Cale, The Charlatans.

"But I have always loved those fantastic little indie labels like Stiff, Rough Trade and Island. I had lunch yesterday with Ben Watts from Everything But the Girl and he was saying, and I agree with him, that the music industry at the moment is going through a similar time to what it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when you had your Stiff Records and Elvis Costellos, but you still had the rock dinosaurs like Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton.

"And I think there is room again now for those small labels and more independent acts to thrive among the giants of the uber-stratosphere like the Lady Gagas."

Part of the attraction of being a lone ranger in the business, for him, is the hankering to get down in the mosh pit and on the beer-tacky floors of the nation's clubs and bars and prepare to be dazzled by some new and feisty young things.

"I just love bands and going to gigs, he says.

"I love discovering new bands. I still find it so exciting and that is how I want to spend my time — in London, where I live, and in Bristol. And I want to spend more time doing that in Cardiff and Swansea."

Though his time as a lad was less the misspent youth of the Cardiff Arms, and the Coach House, more the woodwind section of the West Glamorgan Youth Orchestra.

"In fact I heard, with real sadness, that John Jenkins, who was head of WGYO had died. He was a big mentor to me and I have been talking to some of the other guys who were in the orchestra with me about possibly doing some kind of memorial for him in Swansea, to say thanks.

"At that time I think Swansea was one of the best places in the county for music education, particularly orchestral."

It may be the case that he learned some of what it takes to handle a host of fragile and emerging talents from John too.

Cameron says the need for a softly, softly approach when dealing with bands and new artists can't be overestimated.

"A producer does have to be a bit of a psychologist to deal with the different egos in a band and to know how to get the best out of people. "And because I was a musician myself — I played sax with Sam Brown and Aztec Camera, so I know how musicians think."

And the emotional toll of the knock-backs or the triumphs a young singer can be subjected to are rough — it can be summed up by what is happening to Lana Del Rey at the moment.

In the space of a single weekend this month she was sprawled across the cover of a national newspaper's mag, being trumpeted as The New Nancy Sinatra, then the following day she announced she was planning to call it quits after just one album, because she had nothing more to say. While the actual Nancy — made of steelier Sinatra genes — is still making sporadic releases after five decades in the business.

Cameron says the pressure of mounting criticism of Lana's image and of a shaky live performance on Saturday Night Live were bound to take a toll.

"It is hard to describe the kind of pressure people like Lana are under when they get so much attention and interest, but they are still fragile young talents. "Admittedly her performance on Saturday Night Live wasn't great, but she was terrified.

I saw her perform on the Jools Holland show and she was shaking like a leaf. It is a very frightening thing to get out there and to know how much criticism will come if they get it wrong."